I hesitate to use the word “pathological,” but no one in the government has been as willing as Vice President Dick Cheney to make ridiculous, demonstrably false claims about “progress” in Iraq. The way in which Cheney describes the war suggests not only that he’s willing to mislead the nation; he also simply does not care what the truth is.
In October 2004, for example, just two weeks before the presidential campaign, Cheney told an audience in Ohio that Iraq has been a “remarkable success story.” What could possibly have possessed him to make such a claim? No one knows — he’s Dick Cheney, and he can lie about a war however he wants to.
Indeed, Cheney’s rhetorical record is filled with some classic “greatest hits,” from “last throes” to “enormous success story,” not to mention every lie about the Iraqi threat itself, from the non-existent Prague meeting to “reconstituted nuclear weapons” to “greeted as liberators.” It’s enough to make one wonder if Cheney is literally delusional.
The VP was in rare form yesterday during a chat with (who else?) Rush Limbaugh.
Cheney acknowledged there is a “natural level of concern out there” because fighting didn’t end “instantaneously.” (Next month, the war will have lasted longer than U.S. fighting in World War II.) Cheney then pointed to various news items to paint a positive picture of conditions in Iraq and concluded, “If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.”
Right around the time Cheney was saying this, nine more American troops were killed in Iraq, raising to 67 the number of U.S. troops killed in October, putting this month on pace to be one of the deadliest months in Iraq to date. That announcement was followed by news that Iraqi’s “government” had fired two top generals, who had allowed death squads to infiltrate the country’s military.
All the while, Cheney insists that his comments are “basically accurate and reflect reality.”
I’m curious, if Iraq is “doing remarkably well” right now, what, exactly, would Dick Cheney consider a disaster? How bad would conditions have to get before the VP didn’t think everything was going well?
Or better yet, how about making this a campaign issue? Let’s offer America a choice: if you agree with Dick Cheney that Iraq is going “remarkably well,” vote Republican. If you don’t, vote for us.
For what it’s worth, the Center for American Progress offered a real status check last week.
"Wearing a helmet and a flak jacket and flanked by machine-gun-toting bodyguards to defend against insurgents," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday, and "signs of progress were not much in evidence in the first hours of her visit." Her trip "began inauspiciously when the military transport plane that brought her to Baghdad was forced to circle the city for about 40 minutes because of what a State Department spokesman later said was either mortar fire or rockets at the airport." Last night during a meeting with Iraq President Jalal Talabani, "the lights went out, forcing" Rice "to continue the discussion in the dark." The visit, during which Rice told the Iraqi government they have "really got to move forward," capped off a bad month for the administration. The release of a damaging National Intelligence Estimate, the revelations contained in Bob Woodward’s book "State of Denial," and weeks of record violence have diminished further the American public’s confidence in the administration’s "stay the course" Iraq policy. Sixty-one percent of Americans oppose the war, matching a high point set in August. Sixty-six percent disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, and 57 percent say the Iraq war has made us less safe from terrorism. It’s time to change the course; the Center for American Progress’s plan — Strategic Redeployment — offers an intelligent direction.
VIOLENCE REACHES ALL-TIME HIGHS: "This has been a hard week for U.S. forces," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said recently. "Unfortunately, as expected, attacks have steadily increased in Baghdad during these past weeks." "Seventy-four soldiers and Marines were killed in Iraq in September, representing the highest monthly toll" since last April. On Monday, eight soldiers died in Baghdad, "the most killed in a single day in the capital since July 2005." The number of planted bombs is "at an all-time high," "defying American efforts to stanch the vicious sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad that threatens to plunge the country into civil war." In August, 3,000 Iraqi civilians died violently, up from 2,000 a year ago. ("[T]his year’s violence was the worst since liberation, and probably the worst over all since 1991," the Brookings Institution concluded.) The continued violence has forced the Iraqi government to extend the country’s "state of emergency" and enforce strict curfews in the capital. The military is predicting the violence will "probably get worse before it gets better," and "the assessment by intelligence experts is that next year, 2007, is going to get worse.”
DRIFTING SIDEWAYS TOWARDS PROGRESS: "What the American people see on their television screens is the struggle," Rice said yesterday, adding that the Iraqis are "making progress." Conservatives are openly questioning the administration’s "sugarcoated" version of reality. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner "offered a stark assessment" of Iraq after his visit there last week. Warner said the situation is "drifting sideways" and several parts of Iraq have taken "steps backwards." "In two or three months if this thing hasn’t come to fruition and this level of violence is not under control," Warner said, "I think it’s a responsibility of our government to determine: Is there a change of course we should take?" He added, "[I] wouldn’t take off the table any option at this time." Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) has called for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation. "I am losing faith in how we are fighting this war," Shays said.
It’s a remarkable success story, isn’t it?